Even Paladin Deck List Guide – Witchwood – May 2018

Our Even Midrange Paladin deck list guide goes through the ins-and-outs of this new deck from the The Witchwood expansion! This guide will teach you how to mulligan, pilot, and substitute cards for this new archetype!

Introduction to Even Paladin

The Witchwood brought two new archetypes to Hearthstone: Odd-cost decks built around Baku the Mooneater and Even-cost decks built around Genn Greymane. Both build-around cards offer more power in exchange for conforming to a deck-building restriction. As it happens, Paladin is in a good position to take advantage of either card!

Even Paladin chooses Genn Greymane. The reward is one-cost Hero Power, so the deck always has a play for turn one and it is also able to use all of Paladin’s most powerful cards, such as Call to Arms and Sunkeeper Tarim, as they all happen to be even-cost cards. While flooding the board with one-cost Hero Power is not quite as easy as it is with the two Silver Hand Recruits each turn from the Baku the Mooneater upgraded Hero Power of Odd Paladin, Even Paladin makes up for this by weaving in additional minions to most turns and having access to an overall more powerful card pool.

Deck Import

We are still in the process of updating our deck guides! The guide below might reference cards that are no longer in the current version of the deck that is listed above. Credit to Cocosasa for the current list being featured above.

Even Paladin Card Choices

There are many good cards available for Even Paladin, and in this section I will discuss the more common choices and their main uses. The particular cards that make the cut depend on the prevalent meta and player preference.

First, there is the two-drop package. This is an important part of Even Paladin strategy, as they are the cards that can be summoned to the board from Call to Arms. Generally, Battlecry minions are avoided, because of poor compatibility with Call to Arms, but in some cases even those may make the cut: not every two-drop is summoned on the board with a spell after all, you always also draw and play some from hand.

Even Paladin decks generally use four or five different two-cost minions (two copies of each), mostly from the following alternatives:

Drygulch Jailor provides Even Paladin the means to play multiple Silver Hand Recruits in a single turn. The one-cost Hero Power already fills in gaps in the mana curve, but building a wide board with that alone is not possible, and Even Paladin cannot use Lost in the Jungle or Vinecleaver to summon additional minions.

Knife Juggler has great synergy with Call to Arms, often getting in a knife or two when summoned. It can also be combined with other low-cost minions and the Hero Power to take a few shots at the opponent’s board or Hero.

Plated Beetle may seem like a control deck card, and to an extent it is, but it is also a solid 2/3 body that is often able to trade favorably in the early game. In an aggressive meta, it is one of the most powerful two-drops for a midrange build such as Even Paladin.

Dire Wolf Alpha is a good card in token decks. If you have a wide board available, you can play Dire Wolf Alpha and trade away one minion after another, getting the attack buff on each one of them.

Loot Hoarder has a weak statline at 2/1, but its Deathrattle can draw you an additional card and keep your machine running. Even Paladin has no access to Divine Favor, so it does not have a lot of card draw.

Wild Pyromancer is better known as a Control Paladin card for its board-clearing combo with Equality, but it can also fit in an Even Paladin list: buffing Wild Pyromancer is a great way to deal with opponent’s tokens.

The exact package chosen for each list depends on the goals of that particular list and other included synergy cards.

In addition to the minion package, the two-mana slot provides access to two spells that can be used to control the board:

Equality can be combined with Wild Pyromancer for a full board clear or with Consecration to clear the opponent’s board but leave yours alive – albeit at mere one Health. It is most commonly seen in Control Paladin, but is sometimes used in Even Paladin as well.

Dark Conviction sets a minion’s stats to 3/3. It is not as widely effective as Equality, but it has multiple precision uses: reducing a major threat to a small minion so that is can be removed with a minion or weapon, or buffing up one of your own minions, whether a Silver Hand Recruit for trade or lethal or a Vicious Scalehide to trade away a threat. The advantage of Dark Conviction over Equality is that it can also be used as a buff in a more proactive game plan.

The four-mana slot is a traditional powerhouse for Paladin, and the current home to perhaps the most powerful card in the game, Call to Arms:

Call to Arms is the alpha and the omega. The be-all and end-all. It is a card you keep in the mulligan in every single matchup, and it swings and wins games by itself. Drawing and summoning three two-drops (in case of Even Paladin that has no one-drops) for four mana is incredibly powerful.

Blessing of Kings is a solid buff card. With a one-cost Hero Power, you can easily create targets for buffs. Blessing of Kings also goes nicely with Vicious Scalehide for a big heal and removal.

Consecration is a great card against token decks, such as Odd Paladin. It can also be combined with Equality for a board clear or with Wild Pyromancer for three damage to all opponent’s minions (and one to all of your own).

The Glass Knight is a powerful mid-game minion. 4/3 with Divine Shield for four mana is decent by itself, and any healing effects, such as Vicious Scalehide and Truesilver Champion can replenish that Divine Shield – as long as your Hero has taken damage that actually gets healed, as overhealing does not count. Technically, you could also heal your minions to get The Glass Knight‘s Divine Shield back, but in practice Even Paladin lacks the means to do that.

And that was just the Paladin class card selection for four mana! There are even more good options in the Neutral cards:

Spellbreaker is one of the most popular tech cards. Silence effects can be good to have, and Spellbreaker is the most all-around neutral silence card.

Saronite Chain Gang can be a good defensive tool, although it really shines with Val'anyr and mostly sees play in Paladin in lists that choose to include the Legendary weapon.

Corpsetaker is an interesting option, as the deck can easily be fitted with Taunt, Lifesteal, and Divine Shield minions. It requires specific deck construction and choosing the options that support it, but it can also be a powerful addition.

Six-mana slot houses yet another pair of must-includes:

Genn Greymane is perhaps the lowest win rate card in the deck when played, but you need it for the effect. Without it, it’s not really Even Paladin anymore, now is it.

Sunkeeper Tarim, on the other hand, is one of the most powerful cards in the game. Turn your tokens into threats, make your opponent’s big minions much smaller, get some sweet trades with Vicious Scalehide or a value trade with the Divine Shield of Crystal Lion. You want it, Tarim has it.

Other than those, there are various options for six mana:

Spikeridged Steed is as close to a staple as it gets without literally being in every list. A great buff card, and with the one-cost Hero Power, you have a guaranteed target for it for one mana.

Crystal Lion is a powerful minion that gets cheaper as you build a board of Silver Hand Recruits. Even Paladin cannot that easily play a ton of Silver Hand Recruits though, so you may also consider using Sea Giant, which is less picky when it comes to the minions it works with.

Avenging Wrath can give the deck surprising amounts of burst for Paladin. It is also useful for wiping out token boards.

Val'anyr can provide near-infinite value. The buff goes on and on, and if you can get the buff to land on a Saronite Chain Gang, a single Silence effect cannot take it away from you.

There are a few end-game options for Even Paladin. Some lists use them heavily, others do not use any of them. You can build the deck to be a bit faster or a bit more value-oriented, depending on the meta you are facing and the cards you have available:

Silver Sword is a value engine that buffs your board and can give you some additional reach to surprise the opponent.

Tirion Fordring is a classic. It’s been around for a long time, and keeps coming up in Paladin decks from one meta to another. A 6/6 body with Divine Shield and a Deathrattle to give you a big weapon is never out of style.

The Lich King wants to compete with Tirion. It too offers a Taunt, and it offers powerful generated cards. A strong end-game minion for any class, including Paladin.

Primordial Drake is a more conservative option that can be used against token decks to defend thanks to its area-of-effect damage Battlecry.

As you can see, some of the cards go naturally together, so when building an Even Paladin deck, you get to pick and choose from multiple packages of cards to build a deck that has good internal synergies.

Even Paladin Win Rates

Even Paladin Play Strategy

Even Paladin almost always starts the game by pressing Hero Power, and keeps weaving in those Hero Powers to its odd mana turns. Sometimes you are able to build a nice board of tokens for Lightfused Stegodon, Sunkeeper Tarim, or Silver Sword to buff, and sometimes you just use the tokens to help your trades and deal the face damage with your bigger minions, such as Sea Giant or Crystal Lion. Whether you want to preserve your tokens or use them to trade depends on your hand and the opponent’s ability to clear boards: go wide against opponents who lack tools to deal with wide boards, and sacrifice tokens for trades against opponents who struggle to clear individual big minions.

VS Aggro Decks

You are the control deck in aggro matchups: your goal is to control the board and remove the opponent’s minions until you gain board control and can move on to the attack, often aided by a swing from Sea Giant or Crystal Lion.

The type of aggro deck affects your strategy. Against aggro decks with a lot of reach, such as Mage, you want to maximize your healing: for example, Vicious Scalehide is best used with a buff card to restore a good chunk of health at once and keep it alive to potentially heal more. Against aggro decks that go wide and need a board to deal damage, you want to limit their board size: for example, Vicious Scalehide early to start trading away tokens from an Odd Paladin can be extremely valuable in the long run.

Be careful with your Taunt minions and Taunt buffs. There are lots of Silence effects in the meta, so you need to consider whether hitting face while you have a Taunt minion alive to put the aggro deck on a clock or whether clearing the board even with a Taunt minion alive is the better path to victory. You have some reach of your own, so if you can build a board behind a Taunt minion and then buff up all those minions, you may be able to end the game surprisingly quickly.

VS Control Decks

You are the beatdown deck in control matchups: your goal is to be the aggressor and end the game. It all starts with the mulligan where you seek your threats, and carries over to the game itself. Trade when you have something to gain from it: protecting key minions on board or preventing setups for Defile, Hellfire, or Duskbreaker. Otherwise, hit face to deal damage.

Depending on the opponent, use your resources carefully. If you already have a good board that is weak to area-of-effect damage and you have Call to Arms in hand, it may be better to hold onto it to repopulate the board after a potential clear. On the other hand, sometimes you need to go all in, and making the call on whether to hold something back or go all in is one of the most difficult decisions in control matchups. You are not playing a face deck. You do not have to always go all in. Your resources are also limited, there’s no Divine Favor to bail you out if you spend all your cards. You can always commit more resources that the opponent cannot effectively answer: Drygulch Jailor, for example, is a fine card to play on a board that is weak to area-of-effect damage. Even if your opponent clears the board, you get a bunch of tokens back to repopulate it again.

Even Paladin Card Substitutions

Ranging from approximately 7,000 to 11,000 dust, Even Paladin is either a mid-cost or an expensive deck, depending on the exact build.

The deck has one mandatory Legendary card in it, Genn Greymane. It cannot be replaced under any circumstances, because it is the build-around card that changes the cost of your Hero Power. Other than that, it is extremely inadvisable to replace Sunkeeper Tarim (Legendary) or Call to Arms (Epic, two copies), as they are the most powerful cards in the deck and replacing them would have a clear and immediate effect on your win rate.

There are several other Legendary and Epic cards that can see play in Even Paladin, but all of them are replaceable in some way.

The Lich King, Tirion Fordring, and Primordial Drake – There are no cheap, big end-game minions in the game right now and this trio also exhausts the pool of suitable even-cost big minions altogether. If you do not have them, you need to play a version with a lower mana curve. If you still want some power, you can use both Crystal Lions and Sea Giants together.

I assure you that it was not announced in game for me. I’m not on these websites all that often, so I need important news in game. I did not get the in-game notification you refer to. I logged in today, chose my even paladin deck, and was very unpleasantly surprised to not get the hero power enhancement since call to arms was in my deck and cost 5 now.

You are free to think what you like. It didn’t notify me. I believe I was in the game when the update hit, as when I came out of a dungeon run match, it told me I had to exit or restart. I hit restart, it loaded back up (no notification), and I jumped into a ladder match with even paladin and had this unfortunate experience. It’s one loss. I vented about it. I’m moving on with my life now. I just think it’s humorous that you think you know what happened on my computer screen.

personally,i think they are not really necessary cards, just good, if you dont have any, i think spikewards steed would be ok, though it is quite bad when most of the present decks have included a silence, and i’d rather use sea giants as you can flood your board easily and you will probably not hold so much card on your hand playing this deck.
Anw, the guide above have already included substitutions for avenging wraths, if you think the cards recommended above suit your style, you can use them.

2 mana 2/3’s are strong against early minions. The best 2 mana 2/3’s we have are Amani Berserker and Plated Beetle. Comparing those two, bonus attack is better than bonus armor for aggro decks in most cases.

With the current meta, there are tons of small minions that a 2/3 trades into really well during the early game. Also with the plus three attack when enraged, forces you’re opponent to use resources to destroy it unless they want five extra damage face.

Do you think you can replace the lich king?
I was thinking about tirion since I have it in my collection.
If you have any good replacement please share it with me, because I dont want to disenchant too much.

I’m having success with -2 ooze, -2 kings, -2 amani, +2 plated beetle, +2 spikeridged, +2 chain gang. My list is a little slower, but it helps against aggro, and I still have some value for the control decks with avenging wrath (great card in this deck btw) and lich king. I haven’t run into a ton of cube yet, but if I do, I’ll slot back in some weapon hate. As it stands now, I think the 2 drop selection I have feels really nice. With ooze you risk getting a vanilla 3/2 out of call to arms, and I feel like not only is the 2/3 of beetle more impactful, but the armor helps stabilize in aggressive matchups.

There is one question I have though. Who is the beatdown against spiteful druid? I assume they are, but at the same time, it’s easy to go wide since they lack any sort of board clear. Do you go wide and forego clearing, or do you clear their board and hope to have enough chip damage before they can refill their hand on turn 10?

This new meta variant is more aggressive than my list was. It does not care as much about defense, and Spikeridged Steed is also vulnerable to silence effects. Avenging Wrath supports the offensive strategy.

Avenging Wrath is really good, I’d want to run at least one. You could sub one of them and The Glass Knight for Spellbreakers, which seem to be suitable tech cards right now. Perhaps you can sub the other Avenging Wrath for a Primordial Drake, but that only helps vs tokens and does not give you reach.

This deck rules… just dismantled my odd pally and parts of my cube to build it… running Spellbreaker in place of knight (cost) … my odd pally and zoo lock were getting worked at 9/10 now I’m competitive again … love all the aoe

I just went 8-2 with this deck from rank 7 to rank 5 in an hour, the only change I did was avenging wraths for equality. I beat a baku paladin, tempo rogue, 2 spiteful priests, 1 spiteful druid, and a mage deck deck that wasn’t odd mage with black cats, cinderstorms, arcane missiles, vex crows, and arcane explosions. The two games I lost were to hadronox druid, and the mirror where all of his juggles hit my dudes, he call to arms on 4 for direwolf and double juggles with perfect positioning, into a turn where Crystal looked and saronite chain ganged.

With or without Spiteful Summoner? I’ve seen some Even Spiteful lists out there as well, they usually run only Call to Arms and Dinosize for spells. I had not really considered Dinosize without the Summoner, but it can definitely be a surprise!

I’ve been running it without the summoner, instead of avenging wrath. With the reduced cost of hero power there is always a target for it and has won me the game on quite a few occasions. Spiteful summoner sounds interesting but I feel the whole deck would have to be tweaked to try and get some sort of consistency with it.

I am kind of confused why avenging wrath is run in this deck. I don’t find it reasonable to spend 800 dust on it. The other card is Giant. I get why its used but are there any other replacements for it. Those 4 cards are the reason why I have not crafted this deck yet.

You can replace the Sea Giants with Crystal Lions. Divine Shield is useful in some matchups, but I like Giants especially against Mind Blast Priest – SW: Death kills them both just the same, but Giant puts the Priest on a shorter clock. I also prefer the Giants against Warlock.

Avenging Wrath provides reach against decks that do not play a lot of minions – Mind Blast Priest again, for example, and is also good against token decks such as Baku Paladin. Two copies makes this deck completely wreck Baku Paladin. I think you want at least one in the current meta. Two may be a bit much unless there is a lot of Paladin and Priest on the ladder, against something like Warlock you could switch one for Spellbreaker.

It is not strictly better to run one-drops. Getting all your one-drops from your Hero Power without using any cards for them has value. It also improves your Call to Arms pulls, as you pull no one-drops, and gives you guaranteed buff targets for one mana regardless of your other draws.

I don’t think it is a great fit, but sure, it is possible to use it. For example, cut Silver Sword, The Glass Knight, and one of the Truesilver Champions to include Val’anyr and two copies of Saronite Chain Gang – I think you want that together with the weapon, because they have such great synergy.

This Deck is awesome against Aggro Hunter.
Especially Avenging Wrath against those Bitertide Hydras. Clear board as much as possible and only leave Hydra (if they dont play it as their only Minion). Cast AW and watch them concede 😀

Thank you! It’s my own build, I played it in EU Legend from 2300 to 500, and it really seemed capable. Usually these guides feature popular and effective lists, but at such an early point in the meta, there are still plenty of competing approaches to the deck and I ended up preferring my own take over the current semi-established builds.

Avenging Wrath is the most unusual card in the list, it really helps farm those competing Baku Odd Paladins. To my knowledge, its use in the archetype was pioneered by the Norwegian pro player Thomerio.

Thanks, I’m glad that you enjoyed it! Even Paladin has been the best deck I’ve played so far – there are still tens to try, of course – and it feels really solid.

There are also plenty of ways to tweak it in the future as the meta evolves, I tried to discuss some of the potential cards in the guide to give you a glimpse into what can be changed if the current list stops working as well.